Homolovi Ruins By Carrie White, Tribune

Homolovi Ruins is at 4,900 feet elevation on the Little Colorado River, an area rich with wildlife. A Hopi word meaning ”place of the little hills,” Homolovi consists of four major pueblo sites believed to have been occupied by the Anasazi between 1200 and 1425.

Archaeologists work the site every weekday in June and July for insight into the migration period of the Hopi people, who count the area as part of their homeland and continue to use it as a pilgrimage destination. The ruins became a state park in 1986.

Picnicking is permitted and there are 52 tent and RV sites with electric hookups and a dump station. Showers are available year-round, and water hookups are available through September.

Park entry costs $5 for a car with four adults. The state park is open sunrise to sunset; visitors center hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

GETTING THERE
Homolovi Ruins State Park is about three hours from the East Valley. Take Interstate 17 north to Flagstaff. Take Interstate 40 east to Winslow, about 56 miles. The park can be reached by traveling five miles northeast from Winslow on state Highway 87.

Homolovi Ruins State Park (official website)

I chanced upon Homolovi Ruins one January on my way to Flagstaff, AZ. These are not spectacular ruins (see Wupatki National Monument, north of Flagstaff, for something more spectacular), but they are interesting and the location is quite something. Walnut Canyon to the west gets more attention, but I think this was at least as interesting. mjh

Close to Home: Short on travelin’ time By Tom Wharton, The Salt Lake Tribune

My best advice to those wanting to enjoy glimpses of Utah’s top scenery is to drive state Route 12, a 124-mile route that connects U.S. 89, 7 miles south of Panguitch, with state Route 24 in Torrey.

Along the way, motorists travel through a variety of ecological zones, from sun-baked desert canyons to cool alpine forests almost 9,000 feet above sea level. They pass through Bryce Canyon National Park, Dixie National Forest, Anasazi and Escalante state parks, the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and a variety of fascinating rural towns.

The road also provides nearby access to places such as Tropoic Reservoir, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Capitol Reef National Park, the Box Death Hollow Wilderness Area, the Hole in the Rock Road and Hell’s Backbone.

State Route 12 has been designated as an All-American Road. … According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, All-American Roads ”provide visitors with a unique driving experience and are considered destinations unto themselves. They provide an exceptional traveling experience such that motorists go to these highways as a primary reason for their trip.”

That description certainly fits Route 12, which also has been honored by Car and Driver magazine as one of the top 10 scenic drives in the nation.

Q: Would you suggest exploring canyons of the ancients via backpacking or car camping ??? thanks. j

I don’t think there’s much of a real system of trails in the area of Canyons of the Ancients. But if you don’t mind backpacking along some dirt roads, you might be able to make it work. The area is also a patchwork of public & private land — you’ll need to study some topographic maps. It’s a funny area, neither wilderness nor recreationally developed.

As for car-camping, I have camped in the nice campground at Hovenweep, off of a couple of dirt roads and northeast of there in the La Sal Mountains (UT-CO border). Any way you do it, it’s worth the visit. mjh

Search blog for more on Canyons of the Ancients

‘Other Mesa Verde’ offers insight into Ute culture By Nate Thompson, Cortez Journal, Durango Herald Online

For information on tours in the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park, call (970) 565-3751, ext. 330, or (800) 847-5485, or visit http://www.utemountainute.com/tribalpark.htm

Park leaders say they are preparing to open Porcupine House on a limited basis May 29, in conjunction with the fourth annual Mesa Verde Country Indian Arts and Western Culture Festival scheduled for the week of May 28 through June 6. Other festival-only archaeological tours include tours of the Anasazi Sun Calendars.

This article talks a bit about how touring Ute Mountain is different from other such sites. mjh

A Zion Overview By: Brian Schmarje

[A]pproximately 2.5 million people visit Zion National Park each season. Twenty to twenty-five percent of those people are international visitors.

Zion is unique in its close proximity to two other national parks, located between Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon in a series of stair-stepped plateaus known as the Grand Staircase. …

There is evidence dating back 9,000 years of Indian groups who once inhabited the area which is now Zion National Park. Petroglyphs, which were chiseled into the rock, still remain. The first known people to inhabit the area of Zion were referred to as the Basket Makers. At some point, their lifestyle became more stationary. Around that time, the Anasazi, or the Ancestral Puebloans, appeared. They grew corn, squash, and beans along the banks of the Virgin River. The Anasazi inexplicably left the area around 1200 AD. Inhabiting the area at the same time as the Anasazi was another cultural group called the Fremont Culture. They also left the area around 1200 AD. …

The park is home to more than 900 plant species, 78 species of mammals, 290 species of birds, 44 species of reptiles and amphibians and eight species of fish. Some of these are on the endangered species list, including the Mexican Spotted Owl, Southwest Willow Flycatcher and Desert Tortoise. Rare species include the Zion Snail, Virgin Spinedace and the Peregrine Falcon. According to Terry, approximately 20 to 30 mountain lions roam the park.

Mesa Verde’s fans dwell on birthday plans By Electa Draper, Denver Post Staff Writer

Mesa Verde is seeing tough times: Tight federal budget for national parks, regionwide tourism declines and park-closing wildfires that have consumed much of the piñon-juniper forest, half of Mesa Verde’s 52,000 acres, since 1996. Visitor numbers dropped from a mid-1990s spike of more than 700,000 to last year’s 450,000. …

The ruins in the nation’s premier archaeological preserve are from centuries to more than a millennium old. The park itself is still a whippersnapper, turning only 100 on June 29, 2006. …

This park, which preserves the remnants of the Anasazi, also known as the Ancestral Puebloans, is officially an international treasure. The United Nations has declared it a World Heritage Site. National Geographic deemed it one of ”50 places of a lifetime – the world’s greatest destinations” in a special travel edition at the turn of this century.

Search this blog for Mesa Verde
Chaco Canyon Home Page (mjh)
Outliers of Chaco Canyon (mjh)

Below is a summary of the positive wilderness legislation that is pending in the current Congress [for the Four Corners states — other areas also have legislation pending].

COLORADO

Colorado Canyon Wilderness (H.R. 2305): The measure would designate over 1.6 million acres of Wilderness in western Colorado on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and some adjacent National Forest lands. The measure was introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) on 6/3/03 and has been referred to the House Resources Committee.

Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness (H.R. 640): The bill would designate portions of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado as Wilderness. The measure was introduced by Rep. Mark Udall (D-CO) on 2/5/03 and has been referred to the House Resources Committee.

NEW MEXICO

Ojito Wilderness Act (S. 1649/H.R. 3176): The measure, which was introduced on 9/24/03, would designate the approximately 11,000-acre Ojito Wilderness Study Area northwest of Albuquerque as Wilderness. The measure would also allow certain adjacent land managed by the BLM to be taken into trust for the Pueblo of Zia to be managed as open space. In the Senate, the bill is sponsored by Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Pete Domenici (R-NM) and in the House the measure is sponsored by Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-NM). The measures were referred to the House Resources Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which held a hearing on the Senate bill on 2/12/04.

UTAH

America’s Redrock Wilderness (H.R. 1796/ S. 639): The bill would designate over nine million acres of land managed by the BLM in Utah as Wilderness. The measure is sponsored in the House by Rep. Hinchey (D-NY) and in the Senate by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL). The bill currently has 161 co-sponsors in the House and
15 in the Senate and was referred to the House Resources and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committees respectively.

http://www.wilderness.org/

ABQjournal: Petrified Forest National Park Shelters 2 Wilderness Areas By Michael Richie, For the Journal

Straddling Interstate 40, between Gallup and Holbrook, Ariz., the Petrified Forest National Park stretches north and south along a 27-mile scenic drive connecting numerous overlooks. Viewed through tinted-glass while speeding across the desert in the midday sun, the harsh landscape can appear uninviting. It’s the gentle, early-morning and evening light that makes the desert come alive.

Since the park is open only from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and there are no campgrounds, wilderness backpacking remains the only way to experience these magical times of day in this magical place.

Few visitors to this ‘drive-thru’ national park realize that the two adjoining wilderness areas established in 1971 are the oldest in the national park system. The 43,020-acre Painted Desert Wilderness and 7,240-acre Rainbow Forest Wilderness lie north and southeast, respectively, from the scenic access route.

Neither area has developed trails or any surface water, and both feature interesting badland formations and petrified logs. If you backpack in and stay the night, you can probably have either one all to yourself.

Petrified Forest National Park (National Park Service)

The following is a great article on these two wilderness areas. mjh

Continue reading Petrified Forest National Park Shelters 2 Wilderness Areas (Arizona) →

Flume holds history on canyon walls By Nate Thompson , Cortez Journal Online – Cortez Colorado

A few miles northwest of Naturita, a sleepy town in Montrose County, state Highway 141 winds past the remnants of a structure that is garnering attention from historians, engineers, archaeologists and climbers. A research team arrived Monday to spend a week studying the significance of one of Colorado’s longest historic sites.

Started in 1888 and finished in 1891, a 13-mile hanging flume built along the Dolores River delivered water to a now defunct mining project.

Navajo-Hopi Observer

Mesa Verde considers cell tower By Mary Ann Lopez , Herald Staff Writer

If a cellular tower is installed at Mesa Verde National Park, visitors to the park’s famous cliff dwellings may soon be able to describe 12th century kivas to friends in New York skyscrapers, either to the dismay or delight of other tourists.

Although cellular service acts as a security blanket for some, others say cell phones are a nuisance that should be checked at the gate and kept out of national parks. …

”Can a cell tower be placed in Mesa Verde National Park that ensures the protection of the cultural resources and the natural resources for the preservation of those for future generations? That is the bottom line,” [Patty Trap, Mesa Verde’s chief of planning] said. …

[C]ellular phone towers have turned up in at least 15 other national parks nationwide.

Tree rings tell stories of historic droughts by Jason Monroe

Dendroclimatic reconstructions, using ancient tree rings to determine the length and severity of historic weather, of precipitation, temperature and other measures of drought, will be used to show the length and severity of prior droughts dating back nearly 2000 years at a presentation to the Chipeta Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society on Sunday titled “How bad can it get? A Paleoclimatic perspective on the current Southwestern drought.”

”It’s pretty hard to tell how bad a drought is until it’s over,” said Jeffrey Dean, a professor at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson via telephone. ”This one could end tomorrow. We just don’t know. Compared to some of the droughts that have been recorded in previous years, this one is not nearly as long — but it has had some severe years.” …

There have been several droughts recorded through the centuries in the West that dwarf the current drought in both severity and duration, Dean said. A drought in the mid-1100s lasted for 50 years, and a second drought, lasting 25 years in the late 1200s, may have been the cause for driving the Anasazi from their cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

Mesa Verde National Park Centennial 1906-2006

On June 29, 2006 Mesa Verde will celebrate 100 years as the first National Park set aside to preserve the works of man.

Mesa Verde National Park (National Park Service)

The culture represented at Mesa Verde reflects more than 700 years of history. From approximately A.D. 600 through A.D. 1300 people lived and flourished in communities throughout the area, eventually building elaborate stone villages in the sheltered alcoves of the canyon walls. Today most people call these sheltered villages “cliff dwellings”. The cliff dwellings represent the last 75 to 100 years of occupation at Mesa Verde. In the late 1200s within the span of one or two generations, they left their homes and moved away.

See also Ah, Wilderness!: Mesa Verde National Park in Southwestern Colorado

Monument gains key 440-acre parcel DenverPost.com

CORTEZ – Canyons of the Ancients National Monument recently gained a 440-acre parcel 7 miles west of Cortez that includes Morrison Canyon, 10 important archaeological sites of ancestral Puebloans, the Anasazi, dating from A.D. 500 to 1150, and a mesa overlooking Trail Canyon.

The Trust for Public Land will convey the parcel to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management so it can manage its cultural resources, the agency said Tuesday in a news release.

The parcel was the last piece of the 2,000-acre Tail Canyon Ranch owned by Reece and Leslie Ann Malles. The landowners approached the BLM last year about selling it.

Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell played a key role in securing money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund for the nonprofit trust to acquire the parcel for the public, according to the trust’s Colorado director, Doug Robotham.

Part of the ranch was sold previously to private buyers, but a conservation easement has been placed on that to protect other important cultural sites, including a great kiva, one of only a dozen known to exist in southwestern Colorado, the BLM said.